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Rays’ Price Is Realistic About His Worth and His Future

The Cy Young winner David Price is in line for a contract exceeding $100 million, although it appears unlikely he will get that kind of deal with Tampa Bay.Credit
Richard Perry/The New York Times

PORT CHARLOTTE, Fla. — David Price was shooting a commercial for a home-security company at his house in Tampa on Feb. 7 when his brother, Damon, called. Price ignored him once, then twice. With the third call, he finally picked up. He figured it must be important.

Damon was eager to share the news that Felix Hernandez, the ace of the Seattle Mariners, had agreed to a contract worth $175 million over seven years. The cost for elite pitchers had just crossed a threshold.

He shook his head and laughed. Price, 27, won the American League Cy Young Award last season and is the hardest-throwing starting pitcher in the majors. In the last 12 months, peers like Matt Cain, Cole Hamels, Zack Greinke and now Hernandez have each signed for more than $125 million. Price is among the next in line.

With others — Justin Verlander of the Detroit Tigers and Clayton Kershaw of the Los Angeles Dodgers — the question is: How much will their well-financed current teams pay? With Price, it is, when will the low-budget Rays deal him? Their contract with Evan Longoria, the star third baseman, runs through 2022. Nobody pretends they can afford another nine-figure deal, putting Price’s future in limbo.

“But I don’t think about it,” Price said. “I just don’t. That’s not why I play the game. I love the game. I’ve loved it since I was 2 years old. I enjoy being a part of an environment like this and doing stuff the way that we do stuff. It’s the right way.”

The Rays have averaged nearly 92 victories a season since 2008, when they won the A.L. pennant with Price on the mound. He had been drafted first over all the previous June, and when he visited Tropicana Field, he received bags of free merchandise, only to learn that the trinkets would soon be obsolete. The next season, he was told, the team would drop its black-and-green color scheme and no longer be known as the Devil Rays.

It was Price’s introduction to an organization in which nothing stays the same — except a relentlessly creative operating philosophy. In 10 tries, the Devil Rays had only losing seasons. In five tries, the Rays have known only winning. To sustain that streak, they have traded several top starters, including Scott Kazmir, Matt Garza and, this winter, James Shields.

“There’s nothing we do where we’re not thinking about the future and how to extend our talent runway, to have the requisite depth to put us in position to have success in the American League East,” General Manager Andrew Friedman said.

“So we’re consumed by that. We’re driven by that.”

The Rays have kept some stars until they reached free agency, including outfielders Carl Crawford and B. J. Upton. They could always do the same with Price, whose rights they retain through 2015. But the trade of Shields, who actually had more innings and strikeouts than Price last season, came with two years left on his deal and netted an impressive return.

The Rays sent Shields and another starter, Wade Davis, to the Kansas City Royals for a prospect package that included two pitchers and outfielder Wil Myers, Baseball America’s minor league player of the year. Rays players understood the move.

“I get it,” starter Matt Moore said. “It’s part of the game. This isn’t Little League, where you get to play with your friends all the way up. I’m just grateful he was my teammate.”

Shields, 31, had been with the organization for 13 years, including 7 in the majors. He was a leader on the staff, a role that now falls mainly to Price, who enthusiastically fills it.

Each inning a fellow starter comes off the mound, Manager Joe Maddon said, Price is the first to greet him in the dugout. When a teammate throws live batting practice, Price stands behind the cage, encouraging him. Price invites teammates to his home to play video games, and his French bulldog, Astro, is the clubhouse mascot.

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“Stuff like that, that goes so far,” Maddon said. “Those kinds of things are impactful. I don’t know exactly how much, but I know it’s great.”

Mostly, of course, Price leads with his left arm. According to Fangraphs, his average fastball last season was 95.5 miles per hour, best among major league starters. Yet he continued to grow as a pitcher, using the fastball less often and baffling hitters by throwing off-speed pitches nearly 40 percent of the time. He held opponents to a puny .276 slugging percentage with runners in scoring position.

The result was a 20-5 record and an A.L.-best 2.56 earned run average, and the Rays rewarded him with a one-year contract for a little more than $10 million, avoiding salary arbitration. Price said there were no active discussions on a long-term deal, but he has no plans to take a discount. An economics major at Vanderbilt, he has a strong grasp of the marketplace.

“As major league players, we’re a brotherhood,” Price said. “We have to look out for other guys that are coming along, the next King Felix or the next C. C. Sabathia or Justin Verlander. Those guys are putting their work in now, whether they’re in the minor leagues or still in high school.

“If we sign a lesser deal, or whatever the case is, it affects everybody, not just you. That’s something you want to take into consideration, because people have obviously paved the way for us to make the money that we’ve been making. We’re very fortunate, and we’re very grateful.”

Friedman said that it was obvious that Price deserved a “very substantial contract,” and that the team would continue to evaluate his status. For now, he said, it makes most sense to concentrate on this season, and that seems fine with Price.

Price said he rarely thought about the business side of baseball until 2010, his first full year in the majors. He had signed for $8.5 million out of college, but teammates never held it against him. The hazing at his first training camp, he said, was harmless fun — Troy Percival slapped a sticker of himself on the hood of Price’s BMW, and Price drove around with it for a week.

The high jinks never seem to end around the Rays, a loose team with few rules. On the clubhouse bulletin board Friday, someone superimposed Maddon’s likeness into a photo of Peyton and Eli Manning, poking fun at the manager’s prowess as a small-college quarterback. Around the corner, the giant head of a wild boar hung from the locker of outfielder Luke Scott, who killed it with a spear.

Price said he had always liked being on the Rays — the proximity to his Nashville home, the diversity of the roster, the chance to win. But he does not discount the possibility he might even be traded this season.

“Whether I spend the rest of my career here, whether I spend a half-year here, a year or more, I cherish this time — because I know it’s invaluable, what we have going on here,” he said. “You can’t say enough about what this organization has done for me, how they’ve all taken me in.”

Soon enough, they may have to let him go, an outcome that might be necessary, even if neither side really wants it to happen. Price can appreciate the resourcefulness of the front office, even if it means he must leave someday to keep the talent runway moving.

A version of this article appears in print on February 24, 2013, on Page SP9 of the New York edition with the headline: Rays’ Price Is Realistic About His Worth and His Future. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe